


audience of none

by princejake



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28538487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princejake/pseuds/princejake
Summary: 9x13 "No Laughing Matter" episode coda: wherein Hawk and Beej are in big repressed love and construct intricate jokes.
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Comments: 20
Kudos: 78





	audience of none

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I knew where this fic was going to go and let's just say it ended up differently. No beta, all typos are my own, all incoherencies are either mine or B.J.'s ❤️ It's an honor to contribute to hot mash summer in 2021

Before long, Klinger arrives to reappropriate the PA system ( _“Ohhh, you must be the new guy they’ve got doing the Philip Morris commercials!” “Sorry to tell you this sir, but we’re shutting down your broadcast on account of the station manager needs his room back for some beauty sleep.” “Ladies and/or gentlemen, you’ve been a wonderful audience, thank you for joining us for our Salute to Uijeongbu!”)_ , but Hawkeye’s spirits are already flying higher than they’ve been all day. He hadn’t expected temporarily giving up joking to be any more difficult than temporarily giving up drinking had been; at the end of the day one coping mechanism is the same as another, right? And it’s not as if he’s an addict, he doesn’t _need_ to deal with his circumstances through a veil of booze or humor or anything else. It’s just a choice. One he can stop making at any time, clearly.

He has to admit, though, this kind of sobriety comes with far fewer benefits than the other. Nobody ever wrecked their liver or ran up a distressingly high bar tab from laughing too much. As far as Hawkeye can tell, the only thing he gets out of this is… well, the proof that he could do it in the first place. Which was the point! Job well done, happy ending, et cetera et cetera and so forth. Still, all things considered, being back to abnormal suits him just fine.

His first instinct is to head back to the O Club now that being surrounded by a festive crowd sounds more like a good time than it does like an exercise in self-restraint. But he only makes it a couple of steps out the door before he notices B.J. lying on one of the benches next to the bulletin board, long legs kicked up and arms folded behind his head. Sometimes when Hawkeye forgets to expect it he’s bowled over again by a thought he’s had since day one: how out of place Beej seems here, the one beautiful thing in this feedback loop of awfulness they’re all caught up in. This current version of him -- scruffy and loose-limbed, clad in his defiantly nonregulation Chuck Taylors and faded pink shirt -- is a far cry from the buttoned-up, clean-shaven captain who Hawkeye met at Kimpo a lifetime ago, but it’s not as if that makes much difference. Sure, he’s got a special fondness for the strict anti-military look B.J.’s grown into, but even in Class As the man still manages to be the loveliest thing he’s ever seen.

Of course Hawkeye can’t say anything resembling any of this out loud, so instead he crows, “A- _ha!_ Come to admit defeat in the face of my total security and strength of will, have you? Very gracious. I’ll take my ten bucks, by the way.”

There’s a smirk shadowing the corners of B.J.’s mouth as he sits up. “You know, a more pedantic man than me might argue that it technically hasn’t been a full twenty-four hours since that bet was made…”

“Ohh, no, no no! We said ‘the whole day,’ and that was yesterday.” Hawkeye sticks out his hand and makes the universal sign for _gimme._ “Come on, come on.”

B.J. rolls his eyes, but his smirk widens into that dazzling grin that always makes Hawkeye feel just a little like putty. He raises both hands in appeasement. “I’ll spot you at the next poker game, how’s that?”

“Deal. But if you try to welch again I’m getting back on that PA system and waxing comedic to this whole camp about that ridiculous giant caterpillar you’ve been carrying around disguised as a mustache.”

“Only if you do it in the Uncle Miltie voice” B.J. quips back.

It’s good to horse around with Beej again like this, it’s so good, Hawkeye can hardly remember why he felt the need to restrain himself from it in the first place, and he drops back into his emcee parlance right on cue. “Folks, don’t look now, but we’ve got a bug in this unit. No, I’m not talking about hidden microphones, I’m talking about the hairy organism living on B.J. Hunnicutt’s upper lip -- although come to think of it, who knows what could be hiding in there? Microphones, sure, and how about all my missing socks? Or Klinger’s dress collection, gone but not forgotten? Maybe even the elusive tax returns of the Winchester family?”

“Are you saying I’ve got a ‘ _stache_ of hidden goods?”

“Oh, now that’s one of your worst yet,” Hawkeye says delightedly.

B.J. beams at him. “You know, if this whole doctor gig doesn’t work out, you may have a real future in broadcasting.”

“Well actually, hosting a radio show has always been my true passion. Surgery is just a day job to pay the bills until my talent is discovered by the world.”

“You’re in luck,” B.J. replies, waving an arm in the direction of Klinger’s office. “I happen to know the owner of this fine station and he tells me they’re looking for a new act, if you don’t mind starting on the graveyard shift.”

“Gosh!” Hawkeye claps a hand to his chest in a display of rhapsody. “All this time I’ve been waiting for a tall stranger from the big city to come and whisk me away into my new life as a star, and look! Dreams really do come true.” He tries to ignore the way his pulse thuds beneath his hand as he speaks. So maybe the joke is tinged with just enough of the truth he’s not allowed to say. So maybe he really does fantasize about Beej sweeping him off his feet and starting a life together, just the two of them, and maybe in this fantasy they wake up next to each other every morning by choice and Hawkeye gets to cook B.J. real eggs and serve them to him along with a kiss. So what. Hawkeye walks around with that truth bottled up inside him every day, and it gets so bad sometimes he can’t even be in the same _room_ as B.J. without feeling it knocking against the back of his teeth, trying to find an escape. And to let it out would ruin everything, but to keep it in would be impossible -- it’s too solid, too demanding. The only safe option Hawkeye has is to slip it by carefully measured increments into his normal stream of wisecracks, disguise it as a bit of play-acting and hope it goes overlooked.

He worries that one of these days B.J. is going to read between the lines, will feel the weight of the words despite how lightly Hawkeye tries to pass them off. He hopes he never has to find out what happens then.

Beej just chuckles, warm and easy, gets to his feet and stretches leisurely before patting Hawkeye on the shoulder. “How about whisking us back to the Swamp for a nightcap to wind down? I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a _very_ interesting day…”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t love every minute of it, you rat!” The two of them fall into step as they meander across the compound. Hawkeye finds that the urge to surround himself with people has disappeared suddenly, and ending the night at home with B.J. and a drink or three sounds like a perfect idea. But first -- “Do you swear that little comedy of errors back at the O Club was a total coincidence that you weren’t involved with in any way?”

“Truth?”

“Truth.”

B.J. holds his gaze just long enough to be suspicious, then nods very solemnly and says, “No.” He instantly dissolves into giggles, pleased as punch at his own fake out maneuver. Hawkeye wishes he had the flyswatter to smack him with. “I don’t know whether to thank Charles or kick him! I mean, I’m throwing out bait all day long waiting for you to crack, and here he comes along to one-up me without even trying. In under five minutes, no less!”

“Sure, all you did was _make_ jokes. Charles _is_ a joke. Besides, you know how he just has to be the best at everything.”

“I’ll say. He outdid himself this time, I’m a little amazed you made it out of there with your vow of abstinence intact.”

Hawkeye tries not to dwell on the mental image conjured up by hearing that phrase from B.J.’s mouth. “Well, you know I hate to leave the theatre before the third act, but there’s such a thing as laying it on too thick. Give your audience some room to breathe, you know what I mean?”

“Funny you should say that,” B.J. remarks. “The scene did take a turn towards the dramatic after you left, actually.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mmm.” They’re at the door to the Swamp, and Beej holds it open and steps aside so Hawkeye can enter first. “Let me buy you a drink, I’ll tell you all about it.”

***

Hawkeye in repose very rarely resembles what an outside observer might call “relaxed.” It’s something that charmed B.J. right from the beginning -- how his body is always at some odd angle, or how he constantly invents new ways to sit, recline, or full-out lounge on any and all furniture. Right now he’s perched on the edge of their unlit stove, back hunched over and feet braced against the end of B.J.’s mattress to steady himself. From where B.J.’s sitting on the bed he’s got an excellent vantage point to watch the flex of Hawk’s throat every time he knocks back another drink, if that were something he was interested in watching.

“And after all that, Margaret didn’t even get _one_ good punch in?”

B.J. shakes his head. “Thankfully it didn’t get that far. Charles owned up and that was the end of it.”

“Okay, yeah, sure, but not even a little knee to the groin? Just on principle!” Hawk gripes before draining the last of his martini. B.J. silently agrees with the sentiment. Hell, he might have been tempted to take a swing at Baldwin himself, if not for the fact that Margaret is plenty more than capable of defending her own honor. “AND I missed out on Charles demonstrating proof of a moral backbone? That’s like cicadas hatching, only happens once every seventeen years.”

“So what’s the big deal? We’ll still be in Korea to see it the next time around,” B.J. deadpans. It’s a familiar joke, but it’s gotten less and less amusing as time goes on… or doesn’t, as fate might have it. When B.J. first got here a lifetime ago, he used to wake up in the morning expecting to be back in his bed in Mill Valley. There was always that fleeting confusion just before consciousness took over, when he wouldn’t understand why the sheets were so itchy, or why he was smelling diesel fumes instead of Peg’s lotion. At the time, it felt like a personal form of torture. Now he hasn’t experienced that sensation in so long he almost misses it. He doesn’t like to think about what that means, or to wonder if on his first morning home he’s going to be confused when he opens his eyes and Hawk isn’t there on the other side of the room.

Maybe Hawkeye senses his mood threatening to shift, because he leans as far forward as his position will allow to tap his empty glass against B.J.’s. Always ready to change the subject. “One more for the road?” They’ve both had a couple ‘one more’s already, but he doesn’t wait for an answer, just lifts B.J.’s glass out of his hand and gets up to pour another round for both of them. Over his shoulder, he says, “You know, I have to admit I was skeptical but now I’m convinced. Even you couldn’t have staged a production _that_ good.”

B.J. can’t help the incredulous laugh that bursts out of him. “Again with the conspiracy theories? What else did I do, kidnap the Lindbergh baby?”

“I said I was convinced!” Hawkeye protests, before contradicting himself in the next breath. “Although just because you’re off the hook this time doesn’t mean you’re not a dirty sneak when you want to be. Remember that ‘surprise birthday party’ you tried to pull off when it wasn’t even my birthday?”

“That was the surprise.” It occurs vaguely to B.J. that in a scenario where the right groundwork was laid, it could be extremely entertaining to trick Hawk into thinking he had some nonexistent scheme in the works and then watch him run around in circles trying to figure it out. But he files that hypothetical away for future reference. “Incidentally, do _you_ remember that this whole bet was your idea in the first place?”

Hawkeye frowns pensively, as if he had completely forgotten barging into the shower firing on all cylinders at half-past-too-early in the morning and demanding B.J.’s _honest opinion_ while they were both wet and naked. (Not for the first time, B.J. had been grateful for the self-control that years of football locker rooms had instilled in him from a young age.) “Hold on, hold on, you threw down the gauntlet. I was just picking it up.”

“Says who?”

“Says your stupid _Readers Digest_ quiz and your stupid ‘running tab’ and your stupid --” Hawkeye gestures nonspecifically, coming dangerously close to spilling both their drinks. “Face! Let the record show I was merely responding to gross slander and maligning of character. The defense rests!”

“I think that would actually make you the plaintiff in this case,” B.J. says as a means of sidestepping the debate while still reserving his right to disagree, and thinks about making a grab for his martini glass before its contents end up on the floor. Hawk’s not entirely wrong, is the thing. The quiz hadn’t been been premeditated, but seeing it there on the page ( _Question 1: Do you become evasive when asked about your true feelings?_ ) he couldn’t resist the chance to innocently poke at his bunkmate’s barriers a bit. For someone as chronically outspoken as Hawk is, the man has a remarkable talent for deflecting when he wants to. B.J. recognizes the instinct. He’d never judge him for it, they’re all of them doing whatever they need to in order to make it out of here in one piece. It just… bothers him to see Hawkeye so oblivious to it, somehow. That’s all.

“Oh, pardon me,” Hawkeye sniffs. “Since when are you a lawyer?”

“Maybe there’s a lot you don’t know about me. Maybe I’ve been a lawyer this whole time!” In the process of trying to reach for his glass B.J. discovers he must be drunker than he thought, because he keeps missing, and then he remembers something funny and his laughter almost topples him sideways off the bed. “Wouldn’t be the first time the army screwed up and sent a lawyer to a MASH!”

Hawkeye cackles in that way he does, bright and electrifying. A shock to the system. “No, no, Beej, you’ve got it all wrong.”

“The army _didn’t_ screw up?”

“No, not _that_ part. They’ve screwed up in the opposite direction. Clearly we’re surgeons who’ve been sent to a military court.” B.J. laughs even harder and Hawk smiles so wide it threatens to engulf his whole face.

“Naturally,” B.J. chokes out. “That explains all the wounded soldiers they also keep sending.”

“All part of the American plan. That’s what we’re over here fighting for, the right to sue the pants off the guy who shot you so you can turn around and use the money to pay your hospital bill.”

“Well then it also explains what the hell Frank was doing here in the first place, that sounds right up his alley.”

“To Ferret Face!” Hawkeye passes B.J.’s glass back to him and they both toast. “And his long list of satisfied whiplash patients.”

B.J. can’t exactly remember how many drinks he’s had tonight between the O Club and now, but he hasn’t yet felt the irresistible urge to get right up alongside Hawkeye and press his face into the crook of his neck, so it can’t have been too many. One more won’t hurt. “So d’you think we should tell them?”

“Tell who what?”

“Tell the army they screwed up.”

Hawk acts like he’s mulling it over, then says, “Nahh, with our luck they’ll just send us someplace worse. Besides, I’ve finally got the dirt in here arranged just the way I like it.”

B.J. hums in agreement. “You’re right. They might even split us up, and then whose socks am I going to borrow?”

“Not to mention the inevitable ugly fight over who gets the still in the divorce,” Hawkeye adds dryly.

They’re just joking. As if the idea of having Hawkeye taken away from him isn’t the subject of B.J.’s worst nightmares. As if this thing between them, this fragile funhouse-mirror version of domesticity, can be easily reduced to a few quips about marriage for someone’s amusement. Whose, B.J. couldn’t say. Certainly not his own. Maybe Hawk finds it funny -- the free-wheeling bachelor whose longest lasting relationship is with his bunkie. _I sleep with you every night. Ha, ha._ Maybe neither of them find it funny and they’re both just playing along, reciting the lines to an unseen audience. B.J. honestly has no idea. It just about drives him crazy sometimes, having no idea. It’s almost enough to make him come right out and ask.

Almost.

“Here’s to screw-ups,” B.J. declares, not breaking character. “Army or otherwise.”

“I’ll see that and raise you.” Hawkeye lifts his own glass with a flourish. “To screw-ups, screw-downs, screwballs, screws loose, screwing the pooch, The Turn Of The Screw, and who could forget corkscrews.”

Because he can’t resist stirring the pot just a bit, B.J. says, “Nah, too many syllables. Why don’t we just drink to Horace Baldwin’s special pajamas?” In the ensuing splutter, Hawkeye’s mouthful of gin ends up mostly back in his glass, but some of it drips down his front. “Careful, Hawk, you’re wasting good paint thinner!”

“Now DON’T start that again!” Hawkeye accuses, wiping his chin with the sleeve of his robe.

“Start what?”

Hawkeye makes a noise that falls somewhere between a scoff and a groan and plops down onto the stool next to B.J.’s bed, crossing both his arms and legs for good measure. “Deep down you’re really a very twisted guy, Hunnicutt, you know that?”

“Come on, that leather was prime material, I know you were chafing to make something out of it.” As fun as teasing Hawk mercilessly throughout the day had been, B.J. couldn’t help but wish he had gotten to hear the comebacks to some of his ribbing. So when he’s met with stubborn silence, B.J. leans forward, propping his knuckles underneath his chin and leveling his best intent stare. “Hawkeye,” he says, leaving a pause for emphasis. “ _Are_ your leather jammies missing?”

After an identical pause, Hawkeye reacts like a switch has been flipped, his whole body shimmying in a convoluted but fluid gesture that peaks with an exaggerated toss of his head. “ _Noooo_ , they’re right where I left them, in my dressing room at the burlesque club in Seoul where I’ve been moonlighting for tips.” He waves his hand for effect, letting it flutter around in the air with deliberate carelessness.

B.J. lets himself smile, big and slow and wide, and wonders for what must be the ten thousand millionth time if Hawkeye knows how beautiful he is, the kind of beautiful that makes you feel warmer just sitting in his glow. Forget surviving Korea -- sometimes B.J. can’t believe he’s survived his whole life without that warmth.

“I’ll tell you something,” Hawkeye continues, oblivious to this internal monologue, “for a guy who claims I joke around too much you sure enjoy setting me up for the punchline.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning whatever it sounds like,” Hawkeye says. B.J. waits for him to elaborate, but nothing happens. His gaze has shifted to a point somewhere past B.J.’s left elbow, and there’s a tightness around his mouth that wasn’t there a moment ago.

There’s been a misstep somewhere. B.J. thinks of driving in the rain, and the moment of muscle awareness right when the wheels start to hydroplane under you and you’ve got just shy of a second before you have to decide whether to panic. He thinks about how Hawkeye always sounds like he’s kidding right up until he doesn’t. He remembers the first time they fought, really fought, after it had taken him half the afternoon to realize Hawkeye was even mad at him. He has the feeling that they’re about to come full circle back to something they never actually talked about in the first place, and that there are far too many wrong ways for him to respond right now. He wishes he were either less drunk or more drunk than he is.

“There was never anything to prove, you know.” The words tumble out before he can overthink them.

Hawkeye blinks at him, once. Twice. They’re within arm’s reach of each other, like always, and B.J. wants to take hold of his wrist, to lay his fingers against the ulnar vein, to somehow diffuse all the things he can’t say down through his skin and into Hawkeye’s bloodstream where they can finally, safely, invisibly, make their way to his heart.

_I love being in on the joke with you. I love starting a sentence already knowing that you’re going to finish it. I love that you never run out of ridiculous things to say, that you’re determined to never let anyone forget how ridiculous our being here is. I’m sorry I made you feel like you should bottle that up. I’m sorry I made you feel like you weren’t good enough._

_It’s just that I wonder what else you’re not saying, sometimes. It’s just that I’m as big a coward as you are, because I want you to say it without me having to ask. I need to know if you feel whatever this is or if it’s all in my head -- this impossible, irreconcilable -- you make me feel_ **_right_ ** _like nobody else in the world ever has, and there’s not a goddamn thing that’s funny about that, can’t you see?_

“Beej?” Hawk’s voice is soft, but it rings in B.J.’s ears clear as a bell, bringing him back out of his own head.

“You don’t have anything to prove. Not to me,” he adds, and then because that still seems inadequate: “Just cause you can’t be flawless doesn’t mean you’re not perfect.” His whole body aches to be close to Hawkeye in this moment, but he settles for stretching out one leg and gently knocking the side of his foot against Hawkeye’s boot. Hawkeye presses back immediately and B.J. feels a wave of relief -- he hasn’t blown this up, he hasn’t said the wrong thing. Hawkeye isn’t pulling away from him.

“You think I’m perfect?”

“S’what I said, isn’t it?”

The corner of Hawkeye’s mouth twitches upwards. “All of me? _East, west, north, and the south_ of me?” There’s a hint of innuendo in his voice, as per usual, but his eyes are still soft and a little dazed, and they're all B.J. can focus on right now.

“ _Doesn’t one and one make two?_ ” he sing-songs in reply, hoping the words sound half as true as they feel. “ _Does July need a sky of blue?_ ”

Hawk’s laughter bubbles up like a spring, and B.J. feels warm all over again. Their feet are still tucked against each other but neither of them seem inclined to move. “Hey, if we can get our hands on some Cole Porter tunes what do you think the odds are that Charles’ newfound generosity will extend to letting us play them on his phonograph?”

“Only one way to find out.”

“Riiight.” Hawkeye taps his nose like they’re playing charades. “Wait til he’s in the shower to do it and beg forgiveness later.”

“It’s a date.”

A week or so later (and after much cajoling), Klinger manages to scrounge them an album with selections from _Anything Goes,_ and while Charles is on duty in post op they listen to it front to back, and Hawkeye gets dressed up in his tux and whips out a pair of opera glasses from somewhere and chides B.J. for not taking his hat off in the theatre before he spends the next twenty minutes debating the merits of the 1935 London cast versus the 1934 Broadway cast, and B.J. casually brings up the film soundtrack just to enjoy how it sends Hawk on a tangent about _Hollywood bastardizing the classics_ , and they sit side by side on the spare bunk leaning into each other and eating popcorn out of the same bowl and letting their fingers brush. Both of them wishing it were real, both feeling strangely enough like it's as real a thing as they've ever known.

It’s an awful lot in a place like this, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I stole a line from The Breakfast Club, I figure it doesn't count as an anachronism if the characters don't know they're quoting it and I thought it fit B.J.'s sense of humor. The Cole Porter song Hawkeye references ("All Of You") is an anachronism because it wasn't written until 1955, but if the show writers can do it so can I. (The song B.J. quotes back at him is "Do I Love You?")
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
